


A Shove in the Right Direction

by becausetheplotsaidso (astoldbyidiots)



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:01:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5218952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astoldbyidiots/pseuds/becausetheplotsaidso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chin's sick of the way Steve and Danny dance around each other. But this time he might finally have a chance to do something about it. (Cross-posted from tumblr.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Shove in the Right Direction

Chin realized just how involved he was in his bosses' lack of a relationship on a rainy Tuesday morning. 

It was early, and Chin wasn't expecting anybody to be in HQ- they didn't even have a case. But there was Danny, sitting in his office and glaring into his coffee.

"You all right, man?" Chin asked.

Danny startled, narrowly avoiding sloshing his drink down his front. He turned, wincing a little, but relaxed when he saw Chin.

"Yeah," he said. "Just tired."

Chin nodded sagely, holding his own coffee up in salute. It earned him the barest hint of a grin.

None of them had been sleeping well. A case that had seemed routine had gone south in a big way. It ended up being the sort of thing a cop's nightmares are made of. The little girl at the center of it had shaken them all to the core. She was Grace's age.

"Bad dreams?" Chin asked.

Danny nodded. He came around his desk, mug out before him like a talisman. He drained it, then headed for a refill.

"Spent half the night outside Gracie's bedroom door." Danny took a long drink of fresh coffee and sighed. "It was the only way I could get any sleep. Probably scared her half to death when she tripped over me this morning. I guess Rachel can add child endangerment to the list of my many crimes against her and humanity at large."

"You didn't ask Steve over to stand guard?" Chin asked, smiling a little too knowingly.

From the look he got, it was pretty obvious Danny had thought about it. More than once.

"I didn't want to bother him," Danny said. "He needs his sleep."

Chin glanced out the window. Steve was struggling to get himself, his rather sizable coffee, and an even larger, grease-stained bag of what were probably malasadas out of his truck. Within seconds, his clothes were completely soaked.

"Somehow," Chin said, "I don't think he got much sleep either."

\- - - - - 

Steve dropped his bag of probably malasadas on the nearest flat surface and made a beeline for his office, dripping water all the way. He barely nodded a hello to Danny, and didn't seem to notice Chin at all (which actually wasn't all that unusual when Danny was in the room).

Danny seemed almost more upset about Steve's behavior than he did about not sleeping. He, too, holed himself up in his office, squinting at his paperwork with more determination than comprehension. 

If that was how their fearless leaders looked, Chin was glad he hadn't bothered to check the mirror before leaving his house. There wasn't enough coffee on all the islands combined to get Five-O out the doors today. It was probably too much to hope that the criminals were feeling similarly lethargic.

And, their luck being what it'd been all week, the governor was due to call any minute. 

Chin grimaced, downed his coffee, and tried to decide which boss was the lesser of two evils. 

\- - - - -

"Hey, Steve. We got any cases today?" Chin asked.

Steve jumped and only barely managed to keep his elbow from tipping his coffee onto his desk. He blinked up at Chin for a minute. 

"What?"

Chin bit back a sigh. 

"Anything we need to take care of?" Chin said, a bit slower. None of them had gotten enough sleep for any of this. "Any cases?"

Steve shook his head. He ran a hand through his wet hair and glanced toward Danny's office. 

"No. We're on paid leave until further notice."

Chin sent a silent thank you to any god who might have been listening. He leaned on Steve's doorframe, trying for casual but knowing he'd missed it by a lot.

"I'll just go home, then," Chin said. It took Steve, who was gazing mournfully in Danny's general direction, longer than it should have to reply. 

"What? Oh, yeah, that's fine. We'll, uh, we'll let you know if anything comes up," Steve assured Chin. 

Steve was watching Danny get another cup of coffee. Chin thought the SEAL looked a little bit like a puppy who'd been denied a bone.

"He didn't call you, huh?" Chin couldn't help but ask. It was vague enough to give them both a way out, but Chin had a feeling Steve wanted to talk. 

"No," his boss said, frowning. "I mean, I know it's really more of a symbolic thing, but he could've asked."

Ah, yes. There he was: Tired Steve. The best way to get Steve to talk, they'd found, was to make sure he was sleep-deprived and then given at least four cups of coffee. The resulting exhausted, jittering with caffeine man was much more open to spilling his guts. (The rest of Five-O figured the bad guys hadn't listened to enough island gossip to give Steve coffee before interrogating him.)

"I know she's Danny's kid, not mine," Steve continued, "but I still wanna keep her safe. She matters to me."

Chin managed to keep from rolling his eyes, but he couldn't stop the fond smile. Steve looked so put out. 

"Hold that thought," said Chin.

\- - - - -

Danny was significantly less surprised to see Chin.

"Do we have a case?"

"Nope," Chin said, giving Danny a toothy grin. "Paid leave."

Danny slumped down in his seat, obviously relieved. His eyes flicked toward Steve's office. 

"Think Steve's gonna be okay with that?" asked Danny. "I give it a week before he calls the governor for a case."

"I'd usually agree with you," Chin said, "but he'll probably need a few hours of sleep first. I don't think he got any at all last night."

"What?" Danny frowned, clearly surprised. "Don't tell me the moron decided that only mere mortals need sleep and, I don't know, ran up and down a mountain until the sun came up?"

Chin laughed. 

"No," he said. "I think he was just worried about you and Grace. You know how he is. He can't let himself believe you're safe unless he's actually there to protect you. He's like a large German Shepard."

"Control issues." Danny nodded sagely. He thought for a moment and then said, "You're saying I shoulda called him last night, aren't you?"

Chin's grin shifted into a sheepish smile. 

"Uh huh," said Danny, "I thought so. Chin, and let me first say that I appreciate you keeping quiet about my inadvisable crush on my idiot of a partner, I don't see any way that calling Steve over to my house late at night and asking him to sleep over could possibly end well."

"Liar," Chin said. 

Danny's cheeks flushed pink. He didn't meet Chin's eyes as he said, "I cannot believe you just went there. You, my friend, have a terrible, dirty mind. I'll think about asking him to stay over tonight, okay? But I'm only saying I'm gonna think about it. Now, go far away."

As Chin reached the door, Danny said, "You really have too much time on your hands, you know that? Don't think this won't come up on your annual performance review."

Chin laughed softly and waved a hand in acknowledgement, but didn't turn back or reply.

\- - - - -

All right, Danny had a point- Chin did have an awful lot of time on his hands. 

He'd texted Kono three times. She'd called after the third one, clearly checking her phone between waves. (A little rain wasn't gonna keep her from her morning surf, especially this week.) Her answer to his question of what to do with their bosses had mainly consisted of laughter. It seemed like the first laughter he'd heard in a long time.

"If you can get them to make some progress before I get there, I'll buy you lunch for the rest of the week," she promised. "It's been years at this point and neither of them has made a move. _Years_."

"Prepare yourself for a lighter wallet, cuz," Chin laughed. "But feel free to catch some extra waves. You deserve it."

Kono snorted.

"Uh huh," she said. "You're already planning where we're eating tomorrow, aren't you?"

"I'm just saying, you're not missing much around here. You might as well take your time." Chin's smile grew as he talked. "How does steak sound?"

"Awful."

Steve came back around the time Chin hung up. He had a towel that he'd found somewhere draped around his neck, and he looked significantly drier than he had the last time Chin saw him.

Steve seemed to see Chin this time, and wandered over. He was frowning a little.

"Is Danny okay?" he asked. "He didn't yell at me for getting the floor wet. I was expecting a full lecture on safety in the workplace."

Chin hid a smile. Of course Steve would worry. 

"Yeah, he's fine," Chin said. "Could probably use some space for a few minutes, though."

Before he was even finished speaking, Chin knew it was a stupid thing to say. Steve was going to understand it to mean Danny was in danger or something. 

Sure enough, Steve was halfway to Danny's office before Chin turned around. He shook his head, and decided to shelter in his office from the inevitable explosion. It didn't take long. 

"Steven, we have had a long week, which is the _only_ reason I am not going to throw you out of my office on your _ass_." Danny wasn't yelling, not exactly, but his painfully calm voice was far too loud for indoors. "I am a grown ass man and I do not need a goddamn babysitter! Now," he said, and his voice was frigid, "get out."

Chin couldn't resist glancing over. He saw Steve slinking away, shoulders hunched and tail between his legs.

\- - - - -

For quite a while the only sound was the rain. Chin had been slowly going insane since joining Five-O (or possibly before that, if you asked his ex-fiancee), but having nothing to do was speeding up the process. He'd already set the computers to update, gone to the bathroom twice, drank the dregs of the pot of coffee and made a fresh one, finished all of his paperwork and done all that he could of Kono's as well. He could go home, like he'd said to Steve, but listening to the rain in his empty house was less than appealing.

Now, sitting in silence with his newest cup of steaming caffeine, he was openly staring at Danny. It took a few minutes until Danny's finely tuned cop instincts made him look up and meet Chin's eyes. Chin tipped his head in the direction of Steve's office and raised his eyebrows, earning him an eyeroll.

Chin frowned, which earned him another eyeroll, but Danny nodded reluctantly and stood.

"Hey," he said as he reached Steve's office, "where d'you take your truck when it's acting up? Camaro needs a new battery, I think."

"What?" said Steve. From this angle, Chin couldn't see his face, but he could hear the surprise and confusion in his voice.

"The car battery, Steven," Danny sighed. "Try to keep up, will ya?"

"Oh." Most of Steve's head appeared as he stood and walked around to the other side of his desk to sit on its edge. Probably with his arms and legs crossed. "You don't need to apologize. You were right- it has been a long week."

Chin shifted slightly to get a better view, as some of the offices clearly hadn't been designed with a cop's natural nosiness in mind. (Chin made a mental note to bring it up with Steve.) Danny's forehead was turning pink. 

"I'm not apologizing," he said. 

"Sure," Steve said, (probably) gesturing offhandedly. "But if you were, you wouldn't need to."

Chin groaned under his breath. This was going to take longer than he'd thought. 

"But," continued Steve, "I bet I could help with the battery thing. I mean, I can replace the battery for you, you don't need to take it anywhere."

"Awesome. Could you, uh, could you do that tonight, maybe?" Danny asked. "I have to take Grace to school tomorrow, and I'd rather have my car as safe as possible."

"Yeah, yeah, of course I can. I just have to double check what kind of battery it needs." Steve's brow was thoroughly furrowed. "But, you know that the battery doesn't actually have anything to do with how safe the-"

"Steven. Just say you'll help, and bring yourself, the battery, a change of clothes, and a toothbrush over to my place in time for dinner."

"I can do that," Steve said. 

Danny ducked out of Steve's office and headed to his own, face bright red.

Kono walked in then, hair wet from ocean and rain. Chin winked at her and nodded over at Danny. She grinned back, dropped her bag off at her desk, snagged the malasadas, and nonchalantly (more or less) bounced into Chin's office, steps light and happy, ready for all the juicy details. 

It was a good thing, Chin decided, that he and his cousin only ever used their powers for good. He was even more sure of it the next day, when he saw Danny and Steve holding hands when they thought no one was looking.


End file.
